Posted in Learning and teaching, School visits, Writing on Oct 15th, 2007 No Comments »
I was recently in Saltoun Primary School where I observed a P1 - P3 class being taught writing. The teacher used a storybag - an idea that she had picked up from this book:
The teacher had filled a rucksack with items and then told the pupils to imagine that they had found it outside the school. The [...]
Posted in Learning and teaching, Personal Lessons, School visits on Oct 14th, 2007 2 Comments »
Made it to the October break! - so I thought it might be an idea to reflect upon the school visits which are forming such an important (and enjoyable) part of my working week.
I think it’s fair to say that these visits have created something of stir in some schools, with questions being raised about whether or not they [...]
Posted in Curriculum for Excellence, Early Years, Learning and teaching, School visits on Oct 5th, 2007 6 Comments »
I visited St Martin’s Primary school watched active learning in action when I observed a P1 class doing maths. I watched spellbound as the children showed incredible enthusiasm, confidence and focus towards the tasks set by their teacher Cath Nairn.
Cath explained how the pupils were probably three to four weeks ahead of where they would [...]
Posted in Culture change, Curriculum for Excellence, Differentiation, Entrepreneurs, Ideas, Leadership, Learning and teaching, Planning, School visits on Oct 3rd, 2007 1 Comment »
During my visit to Preston Lodge this morning I asked a class why they throught they were able to produce such outstanding work in the Art Department - and believe me it is outstanding.
The answer blew me away!!
“They take what we know and help us learn more” Natalie
Jim Cram, the Principal Teacher, explained that the [...]
Posted in Communication, Corporate, Finance, Public Services, School visits, honesty, professionalism on Oct 3rd, 2007 1 Comment »
It’s accepted practice to give anyone who works for local authorities abuse and criticism.
The picture of petty bureaucrats and people who are not good enough to get jobs in the “real world” is rarely challenged.
When I met recently with David Spilsbury, our Head of Corporate Finance, to discuss issues relating to the education budget I asked [...]
Posted in Differentiation, Learning and teaching, School visits on Sep 27th, 2007 No Comments »
I was in Macmerry Primary School this morning observing a P1/2 class and a P3/4 class.
I watched active learning in action when I observed the infant class work in three groups on reading and writing. I was really impressed by the ability of the pupils to work independently with real quality, whilst the teacher worked with another group. [...]
Posted in Assessment, Conferences, Learning and teaching, School visits, Self-evaluation, Using data, Words on Sep 25th, 2007 4 Comments »
I had a great visit this week to King’s Meadow Primary School in Haddington. At the beginning of my visit I had a chat with Headteacher Donald McGillivray about boy’s writing. Donald has done a fascinating analysis of boys’ attainment across the school and the statistics show that boys’ writing is of a much lower standard than [...]
Posted in Leadership, School visits, Self-evaluation on Sep 23rd, 2007 No Comments »
There are three points of focus that I’m taking during my school visit programme:
Self-evaluation;
Distributive Leadership; and
Learning tasks.
I’m going out to Kingsmeadow Primary School tomorrow. HT Donald McGillivray sent me a paper which outlines how they know their school and how leadership is distributed right across the school.
It’s really helpful to get this kind of detail.
Self Evaluation [...]
Posted in Accountability, Culture change, Ideas, Partnerships, Performance Indicators, School visits, Self-evaluation, honesty on Sep 20th, 2007 15 Comments »
Following one of my recent posts about political scrutiny I was thinking about whether or not we could expose ourselves to further scrutiny.
I was further provoked in this area when listening to Professor Michael Fullan during yesterday’s Scottish Learning Festival where he was talking about one of his Six Secrets of Change. Michael Fullan has had a significant [...]
Posted in Ideas, Learning and teaching, School visits, personal on Sep 13th, 2007 2 Comments »
One of the challenges which teachers face if they are going to involve pupils in co-creating the curriculum is how it fits with the traditional ideas about lesson planning.
Good planning is often regarded as a prerequisite for “good” teaching - that logic therefore leads one to believe that “more” planning results in even better teaching. The result [...]
Powered by FireStats